


Clarity

by serohtonin



Series: Out of the Woods [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, glee season six spoilers, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3188426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serohtonin/pseuds/serohtonin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine deals with seeing Kurt again. Set during 6.02. Contains 6.03 spoilers. Title taken from the song by Zedd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> There are references to bullying, internalized homophobia and abuse/assault. Also Blaine is in therapy in this, so it's primarily a fic about Blaine and how he deals with relationships but my heart lies with Klaine, so it's focused on that as well as the whole tangled mess of the canon storyline.

"I saw him," Blaine starts simply, still in shock.

His therapist doesn't reply, patiently waiting for him to continue.

"Kurt. My ex-fiancé. He came back to Ohio. I didn't understand why he would do that. He's the one who broke off our engagement and _now_ he wants to win me back?" Blaine's surprise morphs into anger as clenches his fists and slides forward in his chair. "I wanted to tell him that it doesn't work that way."

"Why didn't you?" She asks gently.

"I--I don't know." He sits back in his chair, unclenching his fists. "The situation was already awkward enough. I introduced him to my new boyfriend. He, the other guy, already knows Kurt. They went to high school together and Dave, that's his name--He was really troubled back then. He was closeted and he threatened Kurt's life."

She blinks and looks down at her notepad. "Sounds like that would make an already difficult situation much, much worse. How long ago was this?"

"Um, right around when I first met Kurt, but there was bullying going on for quite some time before that. But the incident I'm referring to occurred about four years ago or so."

"So you think this man has changed?"

Blaine shrugs. "I'm not the same person I was then."

"Still, patterns of abuse--"

"He never hurt me," Blaine vehemently declares. "He was never Kurt's boyfriend. He was--he was closeted and misunderstood."

"Like you?"

Blaine's eyebrows draw together. "I don't understand what you're getting at."

"There was a time when you were in the closet, too, Blaine. You told me a few sessions ago."

"Yes. I don't see what this has to do with my relationship."

"It was painful, lying to everyone else when you knew who you really were inside?"

Blaine swallows and nods.

"Is that who Dave was when you first met him all those years ago?"

"Well, yes, but I was out by then. I was okay with who I was, even if most people in Ohio weren't. He was nowhere near ready to deal with that himself."

"But you wanted to show him how to be, right?" She studies Blaine's expression carefully.

He fidgets, knowing he can't hide from her. "Yes, but like I said, he wasn't ready. He had so much _anger_ and he--he took it out on Kurt. I--I wanted to hurt him for the way he treated my boyfriend. He--he was so special."

"Who was, Blaine?"

"Kurt." He sighs, frustrated that the conversation circles back to his ex. "No matter how he was hurting, that didn't give him any right to take it out on Kurt."

"And Kurt was your main priority, right?"

"My main priority was wanting to punch Karofsky in the face." He bites his lip, rage welling up inside him as he recalls visiting McKinley with Kurt shortly after they started dating. He balls his left fist and hits it against his right palm, wishing he had a punching bag to beat right now. And wow, he never really dealt with _that_ properly, did he? 

"I'm sorry. I mean Dave," Blaine adds.

"But you couldn't get through to him?"

"No, not then and frankly, I didn't care to. I was just glad Kurt was safe."

"Because you couldn't protect them both?"

"Yes." Blaine's mouth falls open at that but he quickly gathers himself together. "I mean no. I wanted my boyfriend to not get hurt again."

"But you hoped Dave would be okay?"

"Maybe, for his own sake, I suppose. In the back of my mind, I might've worried about it."

"You couldn't take care of him though. You had to take care of Kurt."

"Yes. He was my whole world. I--I risked my life for him, and I--I transferred schools for him." Blaine's voice starts to rise uncontrollably. "I fucking proposed to him, and what does he do but throw all of that in my face and shut down on me?" 

"And all of this upset you?"

"You're damn right it did. He wouldn't--He wouldn't let me in anymore. I couldn't take it."

"But this David. He was willing to let you in."

Blaine nods.

"You could finally take care of him," she continues.

"I guess."

"But who's taking care of you, Blaine?"

He pauses. "I--I--I don't know. What's your point?"

"You're more like these men than you think, Blaine. They both needed help when you met them. You wanted to give it to them because no one ever gave that to you. You couldn't give it to Kurt anymore, so now you're giving it to Dave. All you do is give."

Blaine looks at her thoughtfully. "Huh. Maybe you're right. I just want everyone else to be okay."

"That's very compassionate of you, but giving so much of yourself has got to be exhausting, right?"

"Without getting anything back, yes. It's awful and it--it hurts. You can only have someone push you away for so long until you get the message." Blaine chuckles wryly, remembering how, near the end, he worked so much for Kurt to simply say two words to him. "I loved him and we--we needed to work. We were supposed to be together forever."

"You were going to marry him."

"Yes, and I thought--I thought we were ready for that. He didn't feel the same so he lashed out and we both said some things we couldn't take back."

"You mean the day you broke it off?"

"Mhmm. It was the first time in months he showed any emotions toward me at all. I--I resented him for it. I'll never forgive him for that."

"Forever, never. Those are very absolute ways of looking at this. Nothing is ever absolute, except death."

"Are you saying that I should forgive Kurt after the way he treated me?"

"You forgave Dave for the way he treated Kurt, haven't you?"

"Yeah I guess but that wasn't my battle. It was Kurt's."

"Still he threatened physical harm to someone you cared for, and by extension, you. You were able to let that go enough to date the guy. Kurt hurt you emotionally. Can you offer him the same courtesy?"

"That's hardly the same thing. Kurt was supposed to love me and part of me will always love him, so I--I want to, one day. The pain--It's--I can handle it most of the time. I'm getting over it, thanks to you." He smiles at the kind middle-aged woman. "But other times, it's like we broke up yesterday. So when I saw him, it reminded me of everything he did or more like everything he didn't do, and I was polite but the wounds felt fresh again, y'know? When I hugged him, my chest was just aching because," Blaine swallows, his eyes watering. "Because he still smelled like home."

"That's only natural, Blaine," she reasons. "You were with him for years. He's your first love. You lived with him. You thought you would marry him."

"Will that feeling ever go away?"

"That's something that only you can answer, Blaine."

He thought that after being in therapy for so long, he'd be over Kurt Hummel.

Maybe that will take more time than he thought.

Now that they're in the same state, it may take even longer.

"At one point when we met up, he ran off and I--I wanted to go to him. I wanted to take care of him, but I remembered how he wouldn't let me."

"He's not your responsibility, Blaine."

"It wasn't like that though. It was like an instinct. Loving him, _Kurt,_ it was always instinct, before I even realized it. I don't think I can supress that even when I'm angry at him."

"So you're still angry at him?"

"Of course I am. I didn't even mention how he's working to put the glee club back together at his old school and they'll be competing against Dalton. He poached one of my new potential member of the Warblers. He had no right to take that from me too. I was happy and thriving here until he came back and ruined it, again."

"Maybe that wasn't personal. You're reading too much into it. You'll need to learn how to share space with him without resenting him for his past actions or lack thereof."

"All I did was try to learn how to share space with him, for months, and he didn't want that. Now that we're broken up, suddenly he wants that again?"

"What do you think that means?"

"He wants to chase me down and win me back. The second part he said himself."

She looks away from Blaine and flips through her notepad, intently reading something before she looks back up at him. "Didn't you go to Dalton with Kurt at one point?"

"Yes, I did."

"It's where you met and fell in love?"

"Pretty much, yeah." He can't help smiling and blushing when he thinks back to their first kiss, and then his heart wrenches anew when an image flashes through his mind, of Kurt surrounded by all their friends on the staircase where they met, dressed in a turquoise suit and nodding with tears in his eyes as he agreed to spend the rest of his life with Blaine.

"So maybe he's not stealing your livelihood. Maybe we're both looking at this all wrong. Maybe he's giving your livelihood back, reminding you of the things that tie you together rather than what tore you apart. Is that something you would want?"

"It's a little too late for that, isn't it?"

"That's up to you, Blaine. All I know is we spent over half this session talking about your ex and not about your current beau. You always brought the conversation back to Kurt."

"It's only natural. You said so yourself. Kurt coming back was the main thing on my mind this week."

"Which makes sense. You said loving him is like instinct?"

"Y-yes," Blaine says in a small voice.

"An instinct is something inside you that you can't shake, but you've suppressed it in favor of anger."

"I have every right to be angry. Look where loving him has got me."

"I understand that. It sounds like you have to feel something for him and you don't want to feel the love anymore so on the surface, you turned it into an emotion that is safer to express in this situation."

"Are you saying I still love Kurt?"

"No, you did. I know you said he shut you out so you've directed those feelings of love onto your music and possibly onto this other man. Now that Kurt is a threat to one of those two things, he might find a way back into your heart. He might break that barrier you've been working so hard to build."

"I haven't built any barriers. Kurt was the one who did that, not me."

"Sometimes we build walls without realizing it, Blaine. He hurt you. It's only natural to protect yourself from that. Having a new boyfriend and focusing on work has been a part of that."

"I needed something to do with my time, without school and without Kurt."

"But now he's back in your orbit."

"Yes and that's what upsets me, because what if he pulls me back in?" Blaine stops in amazement because he didn't even consider that possibility until this moment. "What if he hurts me again?"

"With any relationship there's a risk, especially with this one. Do you still want him in your life?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure at this point. Kurt was the one who ended everything. What would that look like if I just took him back and destroyed what I've worked so hard to build without him?"

"You don't want him to be the center of your universe again."

"No."

"Well he doesn't have to be. You've proven that you can be someone outside of him, so maybe you should work on continuing that, whether or not you choose to let Kurt back in."

"What if I don't have a choice in letting him back in? He's--He's here and I don't know if I can resist. I don't know if I'll want to."

"Well, you can't predict the future. All you can do is let things play out and make decisions with your head and not just your heart. You have to think about the healthiest course of action before you give in to your impulses. I know that's a difficult thing for you."

"Yeah, it is actually. You gave me so much to think about today. I'm still kind of processing what it all means and how it'll help me."

She smiles sweetly. "It's what I'm here for, Blaine. I can listen and help you with gaining some insights but you have to decide what they mean for you and how you act upon them." She glances at the small digital clock on her desk in the corner of the room near where Blaine sits. "Well, I think our time is almost up for this week. I know you're still trying to figure everything out, but what do you think your main takeaway is from today?"

"I still love Kurt." Despite talking about it for a large portion of the session, the revelation stuns him. It feels like a wall that he desperately, furiously constructed is suddenly breaking down in front of him.

"Oh my God, I still love Kurt."

He needs to build it back up; he needs to do something to fix this.

"Okay," his therapist replies. "Don't judge that feeling as something good or bad. Remember that it's just a feeling and that how you act on it is up to you. Take your time and think about what to do with it."

Blaine nods and thanks her for her help, but he's in a fog when he walks out of the office and into his car, noticing that his hands are trembling. Before he can think about it further, he scrolls through his contacts and clicks on Dave's name.

He sends a text that says:

_I think we should talk about moving forward with whatever this is. See you in a bit?_

Blaine's not even sure what he means; he just knows he needs Kurt's smile to disappear from his head.

So when Dave proposes that they move in together, he says yes despite the wrongness filling his gut.

He guesses he'll still have to work on that impulse thing next week. 


End file.
